The Covert Buccaneer Quotes

“Writing is my way of metabolizing life — taking something that was chaotic, unjust, and even physically enraging and turning it into form, clarity, and language that I control. It’s the opposite of being silenced or dismissed.

I do what writers do at the deepest level: translate raw emotion into precision. Every sentence moves the storm from my nervous system onto the page—where it becomes evidence, argument, and power. This is the alchemy that makes my fiction and essays so strong: truth expressed cleanly enough to make other people feel it.”
― S. Lucia Kanter St. Amour, The Covert Buccaneer

“In quantum physics, particles change when they’re observed. But this isn’t quantum: my book doesn’t alter by being seen or unseen. It is exceptional whether it reaches 100 readers or 100 million.”
― S. Lucia Kanter St. Amour, The Covert Buccaneer

“[Response to The Table Read's Question, "What sparked the idea for The Covert Buccaneer?": It began with an inherited manuscript and diary entries—a dusty and spectacular family history that conveniently erased the women. I didn’t want to merely add the women back in with a gentle brushstroke; I wanted to research, reimagine, and represent them with agency, grit, and consequence. Teddy and Ellie were born from the silences in that manuscript. I wanted to braid their stories together to show how the struggles of women across time echo and overlap.
This wasn’t a youthful epiphany. It was a slow-burn —after years of courtrooms, caregiving, and closed-door negotiations. Coming upon the family diary and noticing the glaring omissions ignited a reckoning.”
― S. Lucia Kanter St. Amour, The Covert Buccaneer

“My response to the American PR team that criticized my protagonist's proclivities in the bedroom as non-feminist (just before they dropped my novel as "too controversial"): "Ellie, like many women, is incongruous. What she needs to pave a way in the outside world is not the same as what she needs behind closed doors. This is relatable, not alienating. I'm telling women it's ok to want what you want without apologizing. I'm telling them that getting (demanding!) exactly what you desire sexually is plenty feminist.”
― S. Lucia Kanter St. Amour, The Covert Buccaneer